Blown pro

Does anyone have pics of their pro that failed? I hadn’t fallen on a .2 prior to this one, I thought the placement was pretty good, but the crack kind of exploded. It was one of my favorite pieces before it got mangled!

Foy O wrote:

Scars make it look mega over cammed when it blew

I'd say you WANT a cam that tiny to be very compressed. In no way did that contribute to the rock failure. And, FTR, it wasn't the cam that failed, it was the rock.

Green Alien Revo, seemed like a good placement to me, fell about 4 feet and the shaft that the lobes are on bent (not shown here) and the lobe deformed enough to keep the trigger wire from allowing it to retract.

 placed this above a bomber .4 to double up before a crux. It was shallow and I knew it wasn't very good but figured more the merrier. Fell about 5 ft above it and it ripped. The .4 held like a champ.

I also ripped an rp above a bomber piece (was doubling up again, a very similar scenario) Cam below held fine. Lowered, climbed back up and placed a silver super light in the same place (mostly as an experiment to see if a different metal density/material made a difference) fell onto that from even higher up and it held beautifully. The rp has a good gouge in it. Ill upload a photo later

I exploded this .1/.2 BD X4 the other week. The cam lobe that ripped off is still in the crack.

Foy O wrote:

Scars make it look mega over cammed when it blew

It's only overcammed if it is hard to remove. This cam seems to have come out just fine ...

Foy O wrote:

Doesn’t over-camming compromise the lobes ability to “bite” when loaded? Thus allowing a higher percentage for it to allow the cam to railroad out of the rock?

genuine question - relatively new trad climber so this is very beneficial for me to learn 

 taken from this book, highly recommend

The engineering of the specific curvarure of the cam lobe is to designed to maintain a constant camming angle to achieve maximal friction for holding power. Cams are designed with this curvature to extend past the useable range in the tightest placements. Therefore there is no difference in holding power! The book above is correct. I had this discussion with a climber who was certain that the springs in a cam produced the holding power, and that they were weaker when cammed too tightly... frustrating to say the least.

Wild Country’s The Cam Book is a really good source that explains much. https://www.wildcountry.com/media/pdf/c9/92/40/Wild-Country-Cam-book.pdf

The one that held...

Grabbed the wrong cam while pumping out (was trying to grab green) and shoved it in blind, on a layback. Thought I found a constriction that would work, but it was way under cammed and only really had two lobes engaged. Whipped with it a few feet below my feet, and it held on two lobes

saign charlesteinwrote:

The one that held...

Grabbed the wrong cam while pumping out (was trying to grab green) and shoved it in blind, on a layback. Thought I found a constriction that would work, but it was way under cammed and only really had two lobes engaged. Whipped with it a few feet below my feet, and it held on two lobes

This makes me feel better about dropping all that dough on Totems

Welp, this is shaping up to be a great forum so far! Thanks for the topic OP! 

Don't have a pic of it right now, but I had gone off route and placed a brown tricam. I then took and got lowered back to a ledge. Instead of cleaning the piece and downclimbing, I decided it was ok to just leave it there and go the correct way. I got on the actual route and got a solid .75 in. Ended up whipping at the crux and because the rope was pulling at a weird angle, the tricam blew and received a nice size chip in the nose. 

When I get home from work I can share the damage!

BD 0.1 X4...this resulted in my first ever helicopter ride

As promised, here is the tricam. While not the craziest looking piece, it used to be a lot worse. I think placing it over the last year has almost filed down the tip. It might actually fit better in tighter placements now :)

For the folks posting the mangled microcams, what were the circumstances around the fall? Just a huge whipper or taking a relatively big fall with not much rope in the system? 

Cole Lawrencewrote:

The engineering of the specific curvarure of the cam lobe is to designed to maintain a constant camming angle to achieve maximal friction for holding power. Cams are designed with this curvature to extend past the useable range in the tightest placements. Therefore there is no difference in holding power! The book above is correct. I had this discussion with a climber who was certain that the springs in a cam produced the holding power, and that they were weaker when cammed too tightly... frustrating to say the least.

Wild Country’s The Cam Book is a really good source that explains much. https://www.wildcountry.com/media/pdf/c9/92/40/Wild-Country-Cam-book.pdf

Correction:  optimal friction, not maximal friction

It is a common misconception that overcammed is bad or weaker.  

Stan Hamptonwrote:

Correction:  optimal friction, not maximal friction

Correct. There is a relationship between outward force and range. When the camming angle is reduced (angle from axle fulcrum to contact point) force and friction increase, while the cam range decreases. Some manufacturers play with softer materials allowing for more friction, the advantage is that they can use a greater camming angle, acceptable friction and retain impressive range. However there are trade offs, of course, here as well. Anyone with dented and gouged aliens knows how good they are, until they aren’t.

saign charlesteinwrote:

The one that held...

Grabbed the wrong cam while pumping out (was trying to grab green) and shoved it in blind, on a layback. Thought I found a constriction that would work, but it was way under cammed and only really had two lobes engaged. Whipped with it a few feet below my feet, and it held on two lobes

I took a small fall on a blue Totem with only two lobes engaged. It's not something I'd be psyched to do again, but it did hold.

Stop it, ya'll are making me want to buy totems.